Independence Day

For one day every year, for absolutely free, legendary developer Double Fine throws the best party in town – and shows what it really means to love videogames

Once a year, for free, Double Fine throws a party that shows what it means to love videogames

At first glance, you might not even recognise Double Fine’s VP of business development wandering the halls of his own show. Greg Rice is going incognito. “I’m not wearing my staff shirt, because I just want to be kind of invisible!” he laughs. It’s a simple black T-shirt with the Day Of The Devs logo, a wireframe skull, printed on the breast pocket. Jon Gibson, co-owner of production company iam8bit and the other key coordinator behind this festival, chimes in: “You can go buy that shirt, as a fan.” We’re tickled by the thought of Rice – a man of significant, recognisable height – trying to casually pass himself off as just a really big fan of the show. And then, after a beat during which we realise we’ve missed the point entirely, he reminds us. “I am.”

A collaboration between revered game developer Double Fine and production company iam8bit, Day Of The Devs is a free, single-day celebration in San Francisco of some of the most exciting new games in the industry – mostly indie games, and often ones from little-known creators. It’s a space in which, united by their appreciation of eccentric, artsy, lovingly made things, the lines between developers and fans are blurred. It goes both ways: not only is Day Of The Devs a chance for the people making the games to show alongside their heroes and be creatively reinvigorated by the company they’re in, but also a place where players come to offer their impressions of often very early demos, and even to talk to their makers about how they might make a game of their very own. It’s a melting pot of videogame and art admirers from all walks of life, and of all shapes, sizes, ages and colours – a level playing field of possibility on which the show’s organisers still love to kick about ideas. “You don’t know who you’re talking to, and that’s the best part,” Gibson says. “You can have a really honest conversation with someone. We’re identified by our badges, but it’s fun to take off the badge and just exist in the space – to get into a conversation not because you’re the boss of this, but because you’re a fan as well.”

This year marks the sixth annual Day Of The Devs, and it’s come a long way from its very first outing, which was primarily about promoting Double Fine’s newest game at the time, Broken

Age. “We wanted to invite all our Kickstarter backers to come see it, so we knew we would need a big party to do that,” Rice says, “and a big venue to hold it all, and to be able to house other games and other friends.” But Double Fine wanted to do things its way: fun, friendly, stressfree. ”We had been to a lot of shows, PAX and events like that,” he says. “And we love the environment that they provide as far as getting to meet your fans face to face – but we know how hard these events can be to throw. We wanted to do one where we take a lot of the work on for the developers, so they can just slide in really easily and experience it, and not have to deal with all those headaches.” Iam8bit was the obvious choice of collaborator, as Double Fine had worked with the company before, and needed a partner with expert knowledge of running an event. “The original idea was just highlighting developers and fans and getting them together in a space where they don’t have to pay, everything is free, it’s all open – and it’s all just a celebration of games as artform.”

There would be 11 games in total, including Double Fine’s games as well as those of studios such as Capy Games and Honeyslug. There would be surprises from special guests Funomena. Phil Fish would DJ. Hopefully, somebody would turn up. “The food trucks didn’t trust us when we said we were doing an indiegames event,” Gibson says. “When you say ‘indie-games event’, you don’t think there’s going to be thousands of people wanting to eat lunch out of your truck. You think five nerds sitting on bean bags.” Much to the relief of everybody involved, about 1,000 people showed up, as hungry for tacos as they were for games. And it all worked wonderfully. Double Fine’s relationship and communication with fans changed drastically. “Part of that experience was that we were much more in touch with the community, and much more hands on with letting them see stuff early,” Double Fine founder Tim Schafer says. “It kind of increased bandwidth with the community, which is the era that Day Of The Devs has grown out of.”

And grown it has. This year, we find ourselves in San Francisco’s up-and-coming Dogpatch neighbourhood at a music venue called The Midway in anticipation of the 70-plus games

“THE ORIGINAL IDEA WAS JUST HIGHLIGHTING DEVELOPERS AND FANS AND GETTING THEM TOGETHER IN A SPACE WHERE THEY DON’ T HAVE TO PAY”

that will be shown. We’ve arrived just a few hours after the developers, who’ve spent a fairly relaxed morning putting up pre-made signs over their assigned TVs, running final tests on builds and trying out each other’s creations before the doors open. The event organisers, meanwhile, have been here since the early hours. While the process is a little easier than it used to be – Gibson recalls their second show in San Francisco’s Old Mint, which was “under renovations, so you didn’t really know what was going to work, and what wasn’t. You would plug stuff in and you’d have to run cables through broken windows” – things are still somewhat “scrappy”, he says, in the interest of making everything as stress-free as possible for fans and developers alike.

Double Fine’s preloading and testing of all the game builds is done for developers a week ahead of time at its offices – not counting a few cheeky last-minute emails from devs the evening before the show, whose builds usually also end up being accommodated. “It’s the work that, normally, if we were running our own booth at PAX we would do it all ourselves,” Rice says. Here, he’s happy to take it on for others. The setup for the show is done in the morning, the teardown at night – all in a single day. “At other conventions, you’re setting up for three to four days sometimes, and then you’re tearing down for one or two days,” Gibson says. “You’re in a convention hall for a week or more sometimes.” Rice adds: “It’s just so exhausting, and you can’t really tell how much added benefit you’re getting out of the extra time. So I think we liked the idea of this all feeling like a moment, and a party – it’s here, and then it’s gone.”

Indeed, walking into Day Of The Devs feels more like walking into an underground rock show than a convention. We’re handed a badge that looks less like an official lanyard and more like a backstage pass. Indie game luminaries mill about with beers in hand; first-time developers look on with an equal mix of nerves and elation as industry heroes alight curiously upon their games. Things are laid out in the interest of equal opportunity: there are no gargantuan booths booming over the rest of the fray, with identical TVs lined up next to each other instead. Apart from an ever-so-slightly longer queue, Kingdom

Hearts III has the exact same setup as The Haunted Island: A Frog Detective Game. And while Day Of The Devs is a chance for Double Fine to show off some of the latest games it has signed to its publishing label, Double Fine Presents, Samurai Gunn 2, Knights And Bikes and

Ooblets don’t receive any preferential treatment. “Even though they’re Double Fine Presents, there’s no publisher logos on anything on the floor,” Gibson says. ‘It’s all just developers. They might be in the game itself, but signage, everything is all about the developers. It was a deliberate decision. Not, ‘Oh, Square Enix is publishing this, and PlayStation is publishing that.’”

It’s purposefully subversive.

Instead, games in various areas of the building are laid out almost thematically, which provides a sense of structure and flow to spaces. The initial corridor we walk into, a long narrow hall leading down towards the outdoor music and food truck area, feels almost like a gallery. A Grim Fandango art installation adorns one wall, faced on the other side by iam8bit’s merchandise stands filled with videogame vinyl. A little further down, there are the games – titles such as Genesis Noir and Small Talk, or In Other Waters and PiAwk, which look almost like moving portraiture on the rows of screens. A darker room on the left is more multiplayer-focused and kid-friendly, Robin Baumgarten’s interactive LED installation games bathing faces in neon light, two visitors racing in hoverbike-centric RPG Desert Child. On the right is a room (we walk to it through a small corridor, past three nature-themed games) purposefully filled with more press-focused fare. “They’re games that haven’t been highlighted as much, and I thought might be a little bit more newsworthy,” Rice says. “And I figured you don’t want to yell over music.” The place for that would be the main room, in which a main stage hosts speakers throughout the day, showcases footage from every single game at the show on a huge projector screen, and in which the bar is located. We notice games here that have generated a bit of buzz already – Kingdom Hearts III is in this room, as well as silly John Wick- esque shooter

My Friend Pedro, mysterious puzzle-platformer Vane, and Night School Studio’s hellish drinking adventure Afterparty.

APART FROM AN EVER-SOSLIGHTLY LONGER QUEUE, KINGDOM HEARTS III HAS THE EXACT SAME SETUP AS THE HAUNTED ISLAND: A FROG DETECTIVE GAME

But there’s plenty at this year’s Day Of The Devs that we’ve never played before, or, indeed, heard of at all. It’s to be expected – Edge’s indie coverage for the year, in truth, owes much to the annual Day Of the Devs sizzle reel, a reliable yearly source of fantastic-looking new games. It’s Rice who is the curational mastermind behind this, even if he’s remarkably modest about his eye for talent and originality. “I think the first year of Day Of The Devs was just all my friends!” he laughs. “I mean, I think it starts with that. I’m looking all year for games, so I’m going to lots of festivals and trying to meet people, and see what games stand out.” The show’s open submissions policy helps, too: this year saw 350 submissions from developers from all over the world. “We do comb through all those and find interesting things that might be from outside of our social spheres that we haven’t heard of. We’re always trying to find games that are from diverse backgrounds, and bring new voices into the mix. But a lot of it is keeping an eye on the industry, who’s making games we’re excited about, and following up with them and seeing what they’re doing next.”

It’s clear that Rice – and indeed, everyone helping run Day Of The Devs – is passionate about bright new indie developers and off-thewall ideas. Rice’s job may be to hunt down promising new projects for Double Fine Presents, and there’s certainly ample opportunity to do that at this show. But it’s clear that Day Of The Devs is about more than business. “I’ve just been interested in the indie scene as long as it’s existed,” Rice says. “From the early days of the

Cave Storys and the Braids and the Flows, I’ve just always been excited about this space of people making new types of games, and seeing that pop up outside of triple-A. I just really like games, so if somebody makes a cool one I usually try to seek them out, and see what their next games are like. And usually if they make one hit they’re going to make another one.” Gibson laughs: “Greg is actually one of the most frustrating human beings on this planet because I always look at it as a challenge to try to send him a suggestion for a game to see if he hasn’t seen it yet. He’s always ahead of it. It’s like he has a secret sense for that stuff.”

Schafer, too, recognises the significance of Rice’s curation skills. “As far as the heart of the show, really, a lot of it is the games that Greg chooses. He looks at every single game and plays so many games, too. He’s got a good sense for it. And some of them that we pick we don’t even have all the information for. Sometimes he just saw a cool demo or not even that, just a cool animated thing. Sometimes he just takes a chance. And I think it’s also that he tries to balance the show: having Rosa’s Garden, and

Bee Simulator next to it, creating these little areas.” It’s this air of the hand-crafted and handselected that lends such a personal feeling to the show. Developers clearly feel comfortable showing whatever they have so far here, from very basic two-or-three-screen playable concept demos all the way up to finished games. “Devs feel like they get feedback that’s really honest and raw from people who really love games, and aren’t here to be critical or knock something because it’s not polished enough,” Gibson says. “Whereas at PAX or E3, you can’t show things that might be unfinished, here it’s a safe environment to do that. If someone crashes here, no one’s going to take a picture of it and post it on Reddit and say, ‘This game is broken’.” Rice agrees: “Our fans are very welcoming and open, and they’re always interested in strange things, and I think they’ve come to expect that from this event – that there’s going to be interesting, artistic games unlike anything they’ve seen before.”

The event being local contributes to the atmosphere – San Francisco, after all, is a hub for people with exactly the kind of do-it-yourself attitude present in the games in Day Of The Devs’ lineup. And no one can resist a freebie. Day Of The Devs was a sponsored event from its very inception – some are bigger such as Sony, Microsoft and Intel, others are fellow indies, and some are even secret benefactors who want to support what Double Fine and iam8bit are doing without splashing their logos all over everything. “The trick to it is that it’s not intended to be a money-making thing, and it’s also not a very expensive thing,” Schafer says. “We get great sponsorships from Astro and Red Bull, all these companies so that it’s not expensive for us or the other developers.” The event had to be funded, because it had to be free. “I just feel like sometimes you go to other shows and you feel the for-profit-ness of it. The decisions are made based on how to maximise the profits for that event, and you feel that in the experience. And so hopefully people here have a different

“A LOT OF IT IS KEEPING AN EYE ON THE INDUSTRY, WHO’ S MAKING GAMES WE’ RE EXCITED ABOUT, AND SEEING WHAT THEY’RE DOING NEXT”

experience.” Above all, Rice says, “We just wanted to encourage anyone who’s interested to be able to get here and not have to have that be a barrier to entry, both on the developer side and the fan side.” Even if San Francisco might be an expensive city to travel to and stay in, a free-toattend, free-to-exhibit one-day show could at least alleviate some of the cost.

And for the locals, it’s a wonderful homegrown reminder of their hometown’s avantgarde, self-starter values. The crowd at the show is a revelation: at least half of the visitors are women, there are lots of young children with their parents, and a surprising number of elderly attendees. Seeing as though Day Of The Devs isn’t about money, bringing such a wide variety of people through the doors is one way for Double Fine and iam8bit to measure the success of the show. “It’s local San Francisco families who come here, and see games, and see that games have such a variety of what they’re trying to do – visually and emotionally,” Schafer says. “All these people don’t realise there’s a rose garden tending game out there, and one where you can be a deer, you know? I feel like it’s like a little oasis, an oasis of the positive side of humanity. The creative spirit is on show here, in the middle of a world that seems like it’s run by mean, stupid people.” He laughs. “It’s nice to be around the opposite of that.”

Day Of The Devs has developed over its sixyear lifespan – its lineup of musicians growing steadily bigger and more high-profile, its backstage green rooms host to developer appointments with scouts from PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo and more. So, too, have its goals: now more than ever, Day Of The Devs’ role as a place that helps uncover and proudly display some of the greatest potential in the game industry feels crucial, in an age where digital storefronts are cluttered with releases. “But sometimes to me it’s about how it hasn’t changed, and has really kept true to its original spirit,” Schafer says. “Because we’ve talked about this – like, ‘What do we want to do with this?’ Because you could see that path of, okay, we blow this thing up – we can do three days, we can charge 25 dollars a ticket and do all these things.” Were they ever tempted? “As soon as we had that conversation about the different paths we could go with this, that just never seemed like an option – there are already shows like that.”

This is about creating a completely different kind of event – and one that many other conventions could learn a lot from, it seems. “I think it’s just about trying to support the industry, and the indie side of the industry, and people trying to do interesting new things,” Rice says. “Like, we’re all huge fans of videogames, and we want to see them grow, we want to see new experiences. We feel that these games are representing that, so we want to put a spotlight on them and just do everything we can to make sure they’re being seen.” It makes sense that Double Fine would be the publisher to do it, a developer with a track record of creating brilliant, fiercely individual games, with one of its feet in triple-A and the other in the indie scene. “It’s also good karma, to be doing a show like this, you know,” Gibson says. “What goes around comes around. Double Fine was not always as big as a developer as they are now. They were indie developers – they still are indie developers – but there are different tiers. Some developers can’t even afford office space, let alone PCs to develop on. So it’s nice to give back, in some minor way.”

Whether it’s developers, attendees or the organisers that we talk to, the universal consensus is that Day Of The Devs exists mostly as muchneeded encouragement, a positive affirmation that’s there’s always a space for something (or someone) completely different, a place in which people stand shoulder to shoulder with their peers and are equally intimidated and inspired by what’s right next to them. “You know, I’ve been doing this for 30 years,” Schafer says. “And some years you’re really excited to do it, and some years you’re like, ‘Why do I even make videogame things?’ Something toxic’s going on, something where you just think, ‘Ah, videogames’.

“And then the Day Of The Devs trailer comes out, and I’m like, ‘Fuck yeah, videogames! Yes!’ Videogames are such a great place where people do some of the most creative, artistic work. I find that video super-inspiring every year when that comes out. If you’re going to do this for 30 years, you have to keep a check on your inspiration, and always be in touch with like, ‘Why do I do this?’ And Day Of The Devs is one of those collections of things to keep in touch with. It’s important to my mental health, you know? To my inspiration, and my sense that the game industry is a good place to be.”

AT LEAST HALF OF THE VISITORS ARE WOMEN, THERE ARE LOTS OF YOUNG CHILDREN WITH THEIR PARENTS, AND A NUMBER OF ELDERLY ATTENDEES